Bystander
by Renshuusei01
Summary: All in all, he has met her nine times.


The first time he met her, they were in Vatican. He was a young exorcist with one meister at the time and she, the daughter of the Cardinal.

He had got lost in the headquarters and she had been trying to sneak out. A threat to have his head cut off and placed on a stick if he told anyone that he saw her trying to go out, a cheerful greeting and a brief exchange of names later, they had found themselves walking side by side in one of the ridiculously long, dimly lit halls.

She had showed him to the meeting room that he had been trying to find then disappeared as if into thin air the very next minute. He hadn't thought much about it, telling himself that she was the one who knew her way around that castle like building and that she probably knew a few secret passages.

Only after the conference given to the lower class exorcists and the exwires from all around the world was over and it was time to return to Japan with his superior and the group of students that they were looking after that he had noticed the absence of one of his keys, the most basic one with the ability to only lead outside a building and nothing else.

He had found his way outside and caught up with the group just on time. However, he had never forgottten how angry his superior had been at him for being nearly late nor how he had been shouted at for losing the group in the first place. He would be left behind to return with normal public transportation and on his own budget next time, he had been told.

The second time that they encountered had been fpur months after that. The Japanese branch had gone into a frenzy to finish the preparations for the visit of the Cardinal who would stay over for one day to attend a meeting with the high ranked exorcists or something like that. Shiro hadn't been told the details for rank issues and all and he didn't really care all that much.

The first thing he remembered from that time was the small, golden colored key and the neon pink sticky note that he had found on his bed in the dorm room that he shared with four other young men.

 _Always be vary of a woman who links her arm_ _with_ _yours on your first meeting. Taking this from ypur pocket was easier than taking candy from a baby. Thanks though :)_

He had blinked rapidly for a whole minute before a 'Hey, 'Sup dude?' from somewhere across the room awakened him. He had hurriedly put the key in his pocket and the paper in the bottom of a drawer after squeezing it in his fist. No one could know that he had lost a key after all.

The next day, the Cardinal had come to see them on work and she had accompanied her father.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Exorcist?"

She had asked, pointing to his notes from behind him and he had flinched at the sudden voice to literally trip over his own words as he explained the case he worked on, worse in front of the Cardinal who had come closer to listen to his poor excuse of a presentation as well.

"A tamer?"

"Yes madam. A very talented one at that."

He hadn't noticed that his superior had also come near so he had jumped for the second time that day in front of the highest ranked exorcist that he had ever met. The said man had dismissed them with a nod and went to question someone else while Yuri stayed behind for a few more seconds to give him a smile and a wink before hurrying after her father.

On the third time that he saw her, he was no longer an ordinary, unimportant errand boy of the True Cross but rather a First Upper Level Exorcist. Two years had passed since last time and he had already forgotten about Yuri Egin.

It was the day that he had received the Dragon Meister, his third, and there she was, sitting on the front row near her father and to his surprise, with an exorcist uniform on. She was different from before, taller, curvier, with long hair and even a little make up too. How had he recpgnised her the moment his eyes fell upon her, Shiro himself had never been sure.

After the formal part was over, she had come to congradulate him.

"So you got another Meister? I must admit, I never expected for you to become more than a mere pawn working himself to death in an insignificiant branch, mister Tamer. Cardinal Egin was surprised too."

Again the teasing smile and the single wink but that time there were two differences. One, her face was much, much closer to his own than the last time and he had noticed the moles on her round face for the first time. Two, he finally had the courage to smile back and make a remark of his own.

"I am a Tamer, Aria and a Dragon from today on miss. I was even chosen as a candidate to become the next Paladin...Also I am not the only one different. You are not only the daughter of the Cardinal anymore are you?"

He had nodded his head towards her chest where he could see a small key, probably her only one and the same type that she had stolen from him once, dangling from a chain on her neck.

With a swing of her black locks, she had looked directly in his eyes.

"I am my own person from now on. An exorcist. Yuri Egin. Not the spoiled princess who could make anyone give her anything she wanted with just a smile. You are right Mr. Tamer. I am also different."

Then turning on her heels she had started to walk away.

"You have a key. What's your Meister?"

Stopping on her tracks she had looked back at him over her shoulder.

"You guess it."

Then, just like that she had left without another word, leaving the flash of tose two blue orbs to become one of his most vivid memories years later on a snowy afternoon in the mountains and a part of the constant dreams he had. Never would he predict that Yuri Egin of all, a woman who he had met only three times would turn out to be one of the most important figures in his life at that moment if one asked.

The fourth time, was a little different from the previous experiences.

Five young exorcists who had just got transferred to the Japanese branch were standing in a line before him as he checked their files.

A man of thirthy two, an exwire girl, two more lower level exorcists and...

 _Yuri Egin_

He had raised his head to look them over from where he sat on his desk once he read those two words.

She looked like hell.

Literally.

Her face was pale, her eyes glassy. She didn't have make up on and she had cut her waist lenght hair to end over her shoulders with uneven ends. What had happened? Where had that teasing, cheerful girl from the day of the ceremony in Vatican go in just a few months' time? She had never told him no matter how many times he asked later.

He had sent them to their respective squads without looking down at the files again and only after she left, had it come down to him that he still didn't know her Meister or anything else about her other than her name and her father's for that matter.

So he had requested her file after a few days of hesitating but in the end, he hadn't read a word of it.

He had told himself that it didn't matter if he knew such a trivial thing or not. And he had stopped caring, well, until he found himself in her presence for the fifth time that was.

She looked way better than last time. She had been placed on a boundary duty near a small village with an old shrine and nothing more to protect it from demons.

She had a nice, small cottage in a secluded corner on the mountains which were almost always covered with snow.

"Heard you got your fourth Meister. You may really be a Paladin, Shiro Fujimoto."

He had nodded as he watched the steam rising off the cup of green tea in his hand.

"So, what do you think about my Meister? Does it suit me?"

"What is it?"

He had asked without thinking too much of it.

"You...don't know? You didn't even read it on my file?"

He had shook his head and she had let out a bell like laugh, the first one that he had heard of her and the most beautiful one he would ever get to listen.

She hadn't told him and he hadn't pressed the matter, leaving not lomg after their small chat.

He hadn't returned there for five months before he had received a report of high demonic energy from around that village.

Half of the houses were in ruin. People had got miasmic wounds from the attack. Coal tars and goblins were swarming around.

She was lying on a saddle with an exorcist with the Doctor Meister treating her wounds and three goblins whining in distress while touching her hair and cheeks.

 _Tamer_.

"Finally got it Mr. Tamer?.. I take what I said last time back...You are too stupid to be Paladin."

They had kept her off duty for two weeks. She was taken to an exorcist hospital for further examinations.

The seventh time she was once again, in front of him had been just because of the results of those. The trial had been short. She had neither accepted or denied anything. That alone had been the answer that everyone else needed.

"You were the only man to ever visit her. Just admit it, Fujimoto."

 _I don't know what you are talking about._

"A black stain to forever stay on your otherwise flawless records. How sad..."

 _I didn't do anything like that! Did you ever give it any possibility that I am just being accused?_

"Seriously Shiro, you could have any woman you desired with just a snap of ypur fingers but...the Cardinal's daughter? Really?"

 _Her name is Yuri. She is her own person. That's also why there is no way what you think happened has really occured._

Her father had officially disowned her and she had started to use her mother's maiden name. She had returned to her cottage and never sought her father out again. She was Yuri Okumura from then on. And she was alone.

He hadn't been able to go see her for several months being in a dilemma of being angry at her for not voicing the truth or pitying her for being trapped with a truth that she couldn't voice himself.

When he finally went though and saw her for the eighth time, it had crashed down on him how much she had, they both had, changed since the first time almost almost five years ago.

She was moving slowly and with great effort with that swollen stomach. She was living all alone on the mountains with no one but goblins around. She was probably going to give birth on her own because no doctor would be brave enough to help her and risk her father getting angry at them.

Still, against all odds, before all hardships, she was standing strong and straight looking all too calm, serene...happy?

In the end the pity had won. Another feeling, a different one hvad made itself known in him as everything they had lived through, all the words she had said to him, all the looks she had given him and all the smiles she had shown him flashed before his eyes.

 _Stay_.

 _Stay with her_.

So differing from all the other times he hadn't immediately gone away then. She had allowed him to use the old brown couch before the fireplace as there was only one bedroom in the house.

He had helped her around for two months, carrying buckets of water, cutting wood, taking care of the house for her and fighting off the unusually restless demons in the area.

He had wanted to keep doing just that in an odd way. He had decided to stay. Being an exorcist, becoming Paladin, fighting demons... None of those had tied him to anywhere before. He would never understand it but he had felt that she could then.

But Yuri had asked him to leave just a few days before the labour. She had thanked him for everything but she didn't need a doctor. She didn't need him to stay for the labour. She could raise her child on her own. She didn't want anyone by her side. There wasn't even a void there.

It was _his_ place.

The father's.

He hadn't said anything. He had slowly collected his belongings that had littered over the house in the last few weeks and gone back to the order of True Cross on a cold morning after restocking the kitchen and the wood closets and lighting the fireplace when she was still sleeping. He hadn't forgottten to leave the spare key on the dining table before going outside into the blizzard.

One week later, he and Mephysto had been tasked to execute her and kill the babies, the spawns of Satan.

The ninth time had been then.

She was lying between bloody sheets with not one but two bundles in her arms. One yellow and one green cobered with blue flames as an extra.

He had known that the truth behind the ever absent father was something bad. But never had he guessed that much. Though it explained the rise of the demonic energy around the mountains, the activity of lower level demons and everything else.

He had had only one question, more of a hope that lingered for many years in a meaningless way when he had learned.

 _Could she have sent him away because_...

The force caused by the heart of a newborn demon, a royal one at that, had been what ended her life in the end.

All in all, he had seen her only nine times all through his life. Yet he had never forgottten her face. Instead more details had appeared in his mind everytime he looked at _them_ and remebered her.

He hadn't known much about her. Because he hadn't managed to read the old file that had collected dust in a drawer of his desk even after her death. He didn't have anything left from her except that crampled piece of neon pink paper that he had found balled up in a cardboard box under his things from his dorm days that he had never bothered to unpack before he moved to the monastry.

Yet he knew that he would never forget her. Not even the smallest thing about her. Because they resembled her so much.

The boys.

Her sons.

Not his.

Not Satan's.

Only hers.

One had her face and the other, her attitude and with them, in them he saw her every day eventhough he had met her only nine times before she passed away.

Eventhough she had never let him stay on the eighth time.

Eventhough he had never been anything other than an acquintance for her.

Eventhough he had never been anything other than a bystander in her story.


End file.
